There’s growing consensus that offering the COVID-19 vaccine to as many people as possible may have more impact than holding back supplies to give recipients their second dose — but in Ontario, officials still plan to maintain the two-dose timeframe to ensure immunity.
The push for a change in approach comes after two vaccines have been approved to roll out in Canada.
Pfizer-BioNTech’s version, approved first by Health Canada, is already being offered to tens of thousands of health-care workers.
A second option from Moderna, just approved on Wednesday, is now slated to roll out as well with nearly 170,000 doses expected to arrive in Canada by the end of the year.
Both require a two-dose approach, and original recommendations involved using half the available vaccine supplies while reserving a second dose in case supply chain issues disrupted the timeline, explained Toronto-based infectious disease specialist Dr. Allison McGeer, a member of Canada’s COVID-19 immunity task force.
“That consensus is changing now,” she added.
The two-dose regime involves injections given 21 days apart for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and 28 days apart for the Moderna version.
The latest findings suggest a single dose did provide solid protection against COVID-19 “in the short term,” McGeer said.
U.S. FDA data shows 1st shot efficacy
Data released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December showed that some level of protection from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine begins quickly after the first shot, with efficacy of a little more than 52 per cent — which spikes to roughly 95 per cent a week after the second dose.
A briefing note on the Moderna vaccine showed around 50 per cent efficacy after a first shot within the first two weeks, and beyond that timeframe, efficacy of more than 92 per cent even before someone received their second dose.
“In a setting in which we are seeing more cases every day, and we really want to do something as quickly as possible, it probably makes more sense to get everybody a dose now — knowing that there’s going to be enough vaccine coming,” said McGeer.
“And if that means some doses come a week late, that’s probably fine.”
Yet-to-be-published modelling from the University of Toronto, first reported by the Globe and Mail and obtained in a draft form by CBC News, shows taking a more flexible approach — by withholding fewer doses to vaccinate more people quickly — could avoid 34 to 42 per cent of symptomatic infections.
WATCH | Some provinces won’t hold back COVID-19 vaccine doses for 2nd shot:
The provinces are taking different approaches to distributing their first COVID-19 vaccine doses, which require two shots. Some will hold back half their allotted doses, to ensure patients get the full amount of vaccine, while others are giving out their whole allotment to double the number of recipients, which some infectious disease experts say is risky. 3:38
“If we could get more vaccines in the arms of long-term care residents and long-term care workers, this could potentially avert a lot of the potential infections in the coming weeks,” said Ashleigh Tuite, an infectious disease epidemiologist and mathematical modeler at the university’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table is now preparing to make a formal recommendation to the province on whether to hold back the second doses, based on the research from Tuite and her team, the Globe reported.
Ontario to monitor, assess vaccine rollout
Ontario, however, isn’t committing to changing its current approach, and officials say no formal recommendation has yet been made.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health did say in a statement that the province’s COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Task Force will continue to closely monitor and assess the vaccine rollout.
“While some individuals may have good COVID-19 immunity after only one dose, it’s not guaranteed and a second dose is necessary,” reads the statement provided to CBC News.
“We will continue to administer second doses to patients, ensuring they have optimal immunity from the vaccine, while continuing to vaccinate a growing number of new patients as additional doses of the vaccine are delivered.”
Several provinces, including Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and British Columbia, are already aiming to do the opposite by providing available vaccine doses widely.
“We aren’t holding back doses because we want to protect as many people as possible, as quickly as possible,” Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s chief medical officer of health, recently said.
But Matthew Miller, an infectious disease specialist from McMaster University, cautioned against drifting away from the strict two-dose timeframes before the vaccines’ long-term efficacy is clear — particularly during the early phase of immunization campaigns targeting those at a high-risk of infection.
“I do think it’s imperative to ensure we have the doses on hand to be able to guarantee that they’re to experience the most efficacy possible,” he said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted this photo Thursday as he announced that the first shipment of doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine had arrived in Canada. (Canada Border Services Agency)
‘We know it can save lives’
Advocates for more widespread vaccinations aren’t calling for an end to the two-dose regimen, but McGeer stressed there’s now less need to hold back doses based on emerging information on the stability of the supply chain.
The debate is playing out while a growing number of Canadians say they want to get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it’s available to them.
Close to half of respondents said they would take the shot if it became available, according to a December online survey from the Angus Reid Institute, up from 40 per cent of respondents the month before.
Eventually, as more doses become available, all provinces will be scaling-up their immunization programs to the broader public, with a federal goal of vaccinating all Canadians who want the shot by the end of 2021.
Tuite said her stance on dispersing available doses more widely doesn’t need to be a long-term strategy, since maintaining the tight two-dose timeframe will become easier as more shipments arrive in the months ahead.
“But right now, when a vaccine is scarce, and when we know it can save lives, I think it’s important to think about how we can maximize that,” she said.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
